The House of Night series by mother and daughter team P.C. and Kristin Cast is one of the most popular young adult supernatural series. Following young vampire Zoey Redbird and her friends at the Tulsa House of Night school, it is gripping and action-packed. When recently checking Amazon to see when the next book is due for release (October! Boo!) I came across the newly published Dragon’s Oath: A House of Night Novella, and immediately downloaded it to my Kindle.

Dragon Lankford is one of the professors at the House of Night. As Sword Master, he is a strong teacher and popular with his students. His wife Anastasia also taught at the school prior to her death during the struggles the school has faced. In Dragon’s Oath, we are taken back to the nineteenth century, when Dragon was a student and Anastasia was a new professor.

The novella opens with a scene from the most recent House of Night novel, Awakened (number eight in the series). It is a scene which readers will recognise, although from Dragon’s perspective this time. He is watching the funeral pyre of the character who died in Awakened, and agonising over how he feels he let his beloved Anastasia down.

The bulk of the novella takes place in the past however. Here we learn that Dragon was not always the calm yet strong presence he is in the present day, and that it was his love for Anastasia that caused him to temper his strength with mercy, as she puts it.

Dragon’s Oath, although from the perspective of different characters to the main series, is written with the same page-turning style of the novels. We are spared the irritating modern teen-speak of Zoey and her friends as this is set a long time before that evolved. It is however, just as gripping, with an easy-to-read narrative which is packed full of detail. For those who are familiar with P.C. Cast’s work, the style of Dragon’s Oath is more similar to her Goddess of Partholon series than the main House of Night novels.

The story is short, being a novella, but it gives us a thorough background to Dragon and Anastasia. We learn how they meet, when Dragon “Changes” into an adult vampyre, and what happened in their past that causes Dragon to believe he failed Anastasia. Dragon is my favourite of the professors in the novels. Although most play a peripheral role, you feel a sense of relief when they enter the action (the good ones at least) – they are all calm and accomplished, but none have the same presence as Dragon Lankford. It was therefore very interesting for me to learn more about his background, as his scenes in the main novels are often all too short as the action focuses on the teen protagonists.

However, that may change in the as yet unpublished Destined (book nine, due out 25th October). Dragon’s Oath is clearly intended to be read between Awakened and Destined, as the present day sections are scenes from Awakened, and the epilogue points towards Destined. There is an implication that Dragon may feature more heavily in Destined (or later books), and he may not be the same Dragon that we know. His story is certainly not over yet.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dragon’s Oath, but it is only one for those who are already reading House of Night. Read it after Awakened, and then start counting the days until Destined is published – or if you aren’t a House of Night initiate, start reading the series now and you might just reach Dragon’s Oath before Destined arrives!